Alps shooting: Three people in France massacre shot with 'execution-style' bullet to the head

Alps shooting: Three people in France massacre shot with 'execution-style' bullet to the head

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Bullet-riddled: Police remove the BMW from the scene on a flatbed truck Pic: EPA

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Triple killing: A gendarme stands by the camp where the slain British family were holidaying Pic: AP

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Police arrive at the property of Claygate- Pic: Martin Pitchley

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French police cordon off the road leading to the scene of the shootings in Chevaline near Annecy

EPA/NORBERT FALCO/LE DAUPHINE

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Members of the press gather next to a blocked road in Chevaline near Annecy, southeastern France Pic: REUTERS

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Holiiday scene: A car drives at the entrance of the campground where the slain British family were holidaying Pic: AP

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Roadblock: French gendarmes block access to a road to La Combe d'Ire in Chevaline near Annecy, southeastern France, after police found a girl of about four years old alive inside a British-registered BMW Pic: REUTERS

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The massacred British family had been camping at a site at Saint-Jorioz, on the banks of Lake Annecy

EPA/NORBERT FALCO/LE DAUPHINE

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Gendarmes near the scene of the massacre last night. A four-year-old girl was found last night hiding in the car

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French prosecutor Eric Maillaud talks to journalists near the scene of the massacre

EPA/NORBERT FALCO/LE DAUPHINE

Two London sisters have been left orphaned after their father, mother and grandmother were assassinated in front of them on a holiday in the Alps.

The girls aged seven and four were the only survivors in the horrific attack in which three of the victims were executed with bullets to the centre of the forehead.

The older sibling, believed to be called Zainab, was left fighting for her life after being “severely beaten” with a skull fracture and a gunshot to the shoulder. She remains in hospital in a medically induced coma.

Her four-year-old sister was the only one to escape harm as she lay hidden under her mother’s body for eight hours before she was finally discovered by police.

She had spent the night frozen in fear in the family’s bullet-riddled BMW estate car in at a beauty spot near Lake Annecy in the French Alps while officers waited for forensic teams to arrive from Paris to comb the scene for clues.

French President Francois Hollande said authorities will do their "utmost to find the perpetrators" who killed three people and left a young girl fighting for life.

Public prosecutor Eric Maillaud described the attack as an act of “gross savagery”.

The children’s parents Saad and Ikbal al-Hilli are from Claygate, south west London. They were holidaying with Mrs al-Hilli’s mother, who holds a Swedish passport.

However, detectives refused to speculate as to why the man and two women were targeted by gunmen.

Public prosecutor Eric Maillaud added that forensic teams were checking the calibre of bullets and number of spent cartridges at the scene in a bid to establish what sort of weapons were used in the attack.

Meanwhile it emerged a four-year-old girl who survived the horrific attack unscathed remained hidden under her dead mother’s body for eight hours after the scene was first discovered.

The child lay frozen in terror until she was found by forensic science officers in the early hours of today.

Mr Maillaud said the child was found “terrorised, motionless, in the midst of the bodies” after fellow campers at a nearby site told officers the family had two children.

He defended the delay in finding her as he revealed she was receiving psychiatric treatment.

A British cyclist, a former member of the RAF, who stumbled upon the shocking scene and spotted the seven-year-old lying in the road, placed her in the recovery position.

Mr Maillaud said the British cyclist was overtaken earlier by the French bicycle-rider found shot at the scene.

He said the British man told them he came across the “powerful” BMW estate with the engine still running.

“He also saw coming towards the car a young girl who collapsed before him,” he said.

“He quickly came to her and put her in a side position and called the police and ambulance service and everyone came to the scene.”

He said the girl had been repeatedly hit “extremely violently”.

The British cyclist then went to the vehicle and found the French victim by its side. He broke a window and turned the car engine off and found the other three bodies in the car.

“We are talking about particularly horrific and alarming deaths,” he added.

He added the younger girl said was "not aware of the magnitude of what had happened".

Also killed in the attack was a French cyclist, who is believed to have stumbled across the scene

Mr Maillaud described the scene as being like something from a film and said 15 cartridges were found around the BMW and a “very large number” of shots had been fired.

The firearm used is believed to be an automatic pistol.

The two dead women were found in the back seat of the car along with a number of bags.

“British Embassy team on the scene. Our thoughts are with the young girls who survived and the family.”

Earlier Mr Maillaud described the four-year-old’s survival was “miraculous”: “When the investigators got into the car they discovered a little girl, who was frozen still and uninjured.

“She stayed beside her mother’s body, prostrate for almost eight hours, and did not move during all this time.

“She was speaking a little in English. She had heard noises and shouts, but did not say any more. She is only four years old. She was taken away and put under protection.

“She could not tell the difference between the good guys and bad guys. She began to smile and speak in English when the policeman took her in his arms and pulled her out of the car. She’s fine now — she’s being well looked after.”

The French cyclist has been named locally as Sylvain Mollier.

The victims in the car had been hit by at least 15 bullets. The family were on holiday and staying at Le Solitaire du Lac campsite in Saint-Jorioz on the shores of the lake. They had arrived on Monday and were planning to leave by the end of the week, police said.

Fellow campers described the mother as having dark skin and long dark hair and said the family had been at the campsite for three or four days and were staying in a caravan with a tent attached to it.

Police were alerted to the bloodbath in the car park of the Combe d’Ire forest, near Chevaline, south of Lake Annecy, by a cyclist at 4pm yesterday after it was found by a British former RAF officer cycling through the area.

Local officers waited for forensic teams to arrive from Paris before entering the vehicle which is why the child remained undiscovered until after midnight.

Police said they had not opened the windows or doors of the bullet-holed car for fear that windows would shatter and compromise ballistics enquiries. At one stage a helicopter equipped with thermal cameras flew over the BMW, but failed to detect the girl hiding inside.

This is thought to be because she was hidden under her mother’s body, which would still have been emitting heat.

“The reconstruction of the crime scene meant that everything had to remain in place,” said a police source. “This meant doors and windows had to remain shut until forensics officers and ballistics specialists arrived from Paris.”

Campers at the site confirmed the victims were “all part of a family of five”. They told how they had been “swimming, relaxing, walking and generally enjoying themselves, just like any other family” during their stay.

The murdered cyclist, Mr Mollier, was a father of three who was in his forties. The factory worker came from the nearby town of Ugine. His wife alerted police to her husband’s disappearance last night.

The ferocity of the attack, combined with the obvious attempt by the attacker to leave no witnesses, has led detectives to investigate whether it was a contract killing, a robbery gone wrong, or a “family drama”.

Lt-Col Benoit Vinnemann, who is leading the investigation, said: “The main witness, a cyclist who discovered the grisly scene, said he was overtaken by another cyclist on the climb that leads to the parking lot where the shooting took place.

“Arriving there, he found the cyclist on the ground with gunshot wounds near a car. In the vehicle, a man and two women have also been shot. On the other side of the car, a child was alive. He placed her in the recovery position until help arrived. She had been very badly beaten.”

Back in the UK a neighbour of the family described his shock at their deaths.

George Aicoliana told the BBC: "When I heard the was speechless, I cried for a while. It is very sad. They were very close and very caring. They were established in the the area.

"The little girls were in the local school. The family were very well liked."

Jack Saltman, whose house backs on to the family home in Claygate, said Mr al-Hilli had said something to him before he went on holiday that he would be informing the police about.

Speaking to Sam Walker on the Richard Bacon Show on Radio 5 Live, he said: "I know one little thing which I am not prepared to speak (about) at the moment. I will tell the police about it.

"It was something Saad said to me before he went but at this stage I do not feel I can disclose that but I will tell the police exactly what he told me before he left."

He described his neighbour as "a massively helpful man, a wonderful engineer" who helped him repair household machinery when it broke down.

He said Mr al-Hilli had said they were going to France for around a week-and-a-half to try to "get a bit of extra holiday in before the kids went back to school".

Mrs al-Hilli, he said, was a trainee dentist working at a practice locally.

"His two daughters were absolutely gorgeous, they were beautiful little girls," he added.